World of Trouble: The Last Policeman Book III - Couverture souple

Winters, Ben H.

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1594746850 ISBN 13 : 9781594746857

Editeur : Quirk Books, 2014

Synopsis

Critically acclaimed author Ben H. Winters delivers this explosive final installment in the Edgar Award winning Last Policeman series. With the doomsday asteroid looming, Detective Hank Palace has found sanctuary in the woods of New England, secure in a well-stocked safe house with other onetime members of the Concord police force. But with time ticking away before the asteroid makes landfall, Hank's safety is only relative, and his only relative-his sister Nico-isn't safe. Soon, it's clear that there's more than one earth-shattering revelation on the horizon, and it's up to Hank to solve the puzzle before time runs outfor everyone.

A propos du livre

Extrait :

“Are you here about the dust? Please tell me you’re here to do something about the dust.”
     I don’t answer. I don’t know what to say.
     The girl’s voice is throaty and ill, her eyes looking out over a nose-and-mouth mask, staring hopeful and crazed at me as I stand baffled on her doorstep. Beautiful blonde, hair swept back out of her face, dirty and exhausted like everybody, panicked like everybody. But there’s something else going on here, something not healthy. Something biochemical in her eyes.
     “Well, come in,” she says through her allergy mask. “Come on, come in, close the door, the door.”
     I step inside and she kicks the door shut and whirls around to face me. Yellow sundress, faded and tattered at the hem. Starved-looking, sallow, pale. Wearing not just the allergy mask but thick yellow latex gloves. And she’s armed to the teeth is the other thing, she’s holding two semiautomatics and has a smaller gun tucked in her boot, plus some kind of heavy-duty hunting knife in a calf sheath at the hem of the sundress. And I can’t tell if it’s live or not, but there is unquestionably a grenade dangling from a braided belt at her waist.
     “Do you see the dust?” she says, gesturing with the guns, pointing into the corners. “You see how we’ve got a serious problem with the dust?”
     It’s true that there are motes hovering in the sunbeams, along with the garbage scattered on the floor, heaps of dirty clothing and open trunks spilling over with all manner of useless things, magazines and electrical cords and wadded-up dollar bills. But she’s seeing more than what’s here, I can tell, she’s in the outer reaches, she’s blinking furiously, coughing behind her mask.
     I wish I could recall this girl’s name. That would help a lot, if I could just remember her name.
     “What do we do about this?” she says, rattling out words. “Do you just vacuum it, or—? Is that it—do you just suck it up and take it out of here? Does that work with cosmic dust?”
      “Cosmic dust,” I say. “Huh. Well, you know, I’m not sure.”
     This is my first trip to Concord, New Hampshire, since I fled a month ago, since my house burned down, along with much of the rest of the city. The chaos of those final frantic hours has died down to a grim and mournful silence. We’re a few blocks from downtown, in the abandoned husk of a store on Wilson Street, but there are no jostling anxious crowds outside, no frightened people rushing and pushing past each other in the streets. No klaxon howl of car alarms, no distant gunfire. The people are hidden now, those that remain, hidden under blankets or in basements, encased in their dread.
     And the girl, disintegrating, raving about imaginary dust from outer space. We’ve met once before, right here at this same small shop, which was once a used-clothing store called Next Time Around. She wasn’t like this then, hadn’t fallen prey to it. Other people are sick in the same way, of course, to varying degrees, different kinds of symptomatology; if the DSM-IV were still being updated and applied, this new illness would be added in red. A debilitating obsession with the gigantic asteroid on a collision course with our fragile planet. Astromania, perhaps. Delusional interstellar psychosis.
     I feel like if I could only call her by her name, remind her that we have a relationship, that we’re both human beings, it would ease her unsettled mind and make me less of a threat. Then we could talk calmly.
     “It’s toxic, you know,” she’s saying. “Really, really bad. The cosmic dust is real, real bad on your lungs. The photons burn your lungs.”
     “Listen,” I say, and she makes a panicked gasp and rushes toward me, her assorted armaments jangling.
     “Keep your tongue in your mouth,” she hisses. “Don’t taste it.”
     “Okay. I’ll try. I won’t.”
     I keep my hands at my sides, where she can see them, keep my expression neutral, soft as cake. “I’m actually here for some information.”
     “Information?” Her brows knit with confusion. She peers at me through clouds of invisible dust.
     It’s not her I’m here to talk to, anyway; it’s her friend I need. Boyfriend, maybe. Whatever he is. That’s the guy who knows where I need to go next. I hope he does, anyway. I’m counting on it.
     “I need to speak to Jordan. Is Jordan here?”
     Suddenly the girl finds focus, snaps to attention, and the pistols come up. “Did he—did he send you?”
     “No.” I raise my hands. “No.”
     “Oh my God, he sent you. Are you with him? Is he in space?” She’s shouting, advancing across the room, the barrels of the semiautomatics aimed at my face like twin black holes. “Is he doing this?”
     I turn my head to the wall, scared to die, even now, even today.
     “Is he doing this to me?”
     And then—somehow—miraculously—the name.
     “Abigail.”
     Her eyes soften, widen slightly.
     “Abigail,” I say. “Can I help you? Can we help each other?”
     She gapes at me. Heavy silence. Moments flying past, time burning away.
     “Abigail, please.”

Revue de presse :

Stubborn, earnest, self-deprecating and decent, [Winters’s] protagonist, Hank Palace, is a brilliantly realized character you want to follow to the very end—and beyond.”—San Francisco Chronicle 
 
“Winters, a major talent, gives us the best realized world on the verge of annihilation that this reviewer has seen since Cormac McCarthy.”—Sci Fi Magazine 
 
“Winters’ style is a slow burn....His cadence is a steady beat rather than a roller coaster, and his words sparing and simple. They will stay with you.” —William O’Connor, The Daily Beast
 
“Riveting entertainment.”—The A.V. Club
 
“In this remarkable series, Winters creates a melancholy hybrid of crime and science fiction, managing to subvert the expectations of both genres.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“World of Trouble is a page turner, a book that is riveting and humane, suspenseful rather than frenetic, and moving rather than depressing; and the key to it all is our guide trough this crumbling world. Palace is a brilliant creation, the perfect hero for our eschatological age.”—Tor.com

“More than a shining example of how to write about the apocalypse—it’s one of the most well-written mysteries of any era...World of Trouble is a book you don’t want to miss.”—Paste

“That Winters can paint for us a world that is so bared-boned, raw and honest is why this is one of the best books of the year so far.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“This is quality writing.”—Cape Cod Times

“World of Trouble demonstrates a greater confidence in the storytelling, richer supporting characters, and an ending that I wanted to both race toward and hold off as long as possible.”—Indianapolis Business Journal
 
“Winters has done an excellent job.”—McClatchy
 
Praise for Countdown City
Winner of the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award
 
“I always appreciate novels that have new and interesting approaches to traditional genres, and Ben H. Winters’ two novels featuring Hank Palace fill the bill.”—Nancy Pearl, NPR
 
“Winters is brilliant in conveying the ways in which people look for their best impulses but often end up as the victims of other people’s most base instincts.”—Toronto Star
 
“Don’t miss this series!”—Sci Fi Magazine

“Winters is a deft storyteller who moves his novel effortlessly from its intriguing setup to a thrilling, shattering conclusion.”—Los Angeles Review of Books

Praise for The Last Policeman
Winner of the 2013 Edgar® Award Winner for Best Paperback Original
One of Slate’s Best Books of 2012
 
"[The] weird, beautiful, unapologetically apocalyptic Last Policeman trilogy is one of my favorite mystery series."—John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns

“Winters’s apocalyptic detective story contains an earth-shattering element of science fiction that lifts it beyond a typical procedural.”—New York Times Book Review
 
“An appealing hybrid of the best of science fiction and crime fiction.”—The Washington Post

“In his acclaimed Last Policeman trilogy, Winters showed off his mastery of edgy, sardonic wit — there’s nothing like an asteroid speeding toward Earth to bring out the black humor in people.”—Newsday 

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Quirk Books
• Date d'édition: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1594746850
• ISBN 13: 9781594746857
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 320